Across Europe and other advanced economies, work is changing rapidly. Platform labor, remote work, and shifting career paths have unsettled long-standing ideas about stable jobs and clear occupational ladders. Research has documented rising inequality and more “non-standard” careers, but most studies still rely on broad job categories that overlook how people actually move through work over time. As a result, we know surprisingly little about how individuals build rewarding careers, cope with risk, and make sense of their own trajectories in changing labor markets.
The ReWORCS project addresses this gap by putting workers’ real experiences at the center of large-scale comparisons. Its overall objective is to understand how people generate income, stability, and opportunity across different institutional settings. First, the project measures the full range of career paths—including unusual or “erratic” job moves—and examines their economic returns and risks in France, Germany, and the United States. Second, it looks more closely at what people actually do at work and how they describe and present their careers. By combining large administrative datasets, detailed records of work activities, and analyses of career self-descriptions, the project links broad labor market structures to everyday practices and personal meanings.
Social sciences play a central role: sociology provides the concepts and tools to connect institutions, organizations, and individual experiences. The expected impact is twofold. Scientifically, the project develops new, context-sensitive methods for studying careers beyond rigid categories. For policy-makers and practitioners, it offers clearer evidence on which career patterns lead to rewards or vulnerability. This knowledge can inform more targeted labor market policies that better support diverse and changing work lives across the EU.
